Adaptation as Connection: A Network Theoretical Approach to Convergence, Participation, and Co-Production

Cultural production is increasingly understood along the lines of self-organizing network dynamics instead of as linear and more or less stable (translation) processes with clear-cut creator-recipient dualisms. Participation and remediation, however, have always been a constitutive factor in cultural production. I propose to treat adaptations as embedded in and shaping the complex, non-linear, and decentralized networks of culture that operate along the lines of shifting and contingent connections between human and non- human actors. In doing so, I will show why it can be helpful for critical adaptation studies to take seriously the notion of cultural "function." Making productive insights into biological adaptation for cultural adaptation studies, I aim to shed light on the connotation of adaptation as temporary and contingent "knowledge."